President Obama's go-it-alone program only goes so far

White House aides don’t dispute that some We Can’t Wait actions have been relatively minor, limited in impact or slowed by bureaucracy. It proves the point, they said, that they’ve been making all along: Nothing can take the place of congressional action. The program isn’t a panacea, aides said, but has been worthy to the beneficiaries, and more executive actions are in the works.

“We have never suggested that any of these things are bigger than what they are or, by themselves, will solve our economic challenges,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in an interview. “A lot of big things have to be done legislatively. But while we continue to work with Congress to try get those things done, we’re doing everything we can for the economy and middle-class security through executive initiatives. Those initiatives come in all sizes. And they are all valuable.”

Text Size

-

+

reset

Some of the more ambitious programs are just getting under way, making it too early to judge their effectiveness.

Obama kicked off the We Can’t Wait series by making it easier for strapped homeowners with loans guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to refinance their mortgages. The White House estimates that millions of borrowers are eligible, but no data are available yet on how many have been helped.

The same goes for a program encouraging people to consolidate their college loans. About 6 million borrowers are eligible, but only 94,000 have applied so far, according to the Education Department. The small response and the impending June deadline is prompting the department to intensify its outreach, a department official said.

Senior administration officials are touting an early positive response to Obama’s We Can’t Wait action in January to shorten the waiting period for tourist visas from countries with flush consumers, including Brazil and China, as a way to boost the U.S. economy.

During a background briefing with White House reporters last week, one official highlighted an Associated Press story about how Brazilians, who spend more per capita than other visitors to the U.S., are preparing to flock here. The official predicted the expedited visa process will have a major impact on the economy but acknowledged a need to speed the implementation so it lives up to its promise.

Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, estimated the executive order will create 1.3 million jobs and produce $860 billion in economic activity.

“Considering their economic impact, international travelers — in increasing numbers — are about to become some of America’s best friends in 2012,” Dow wrote in an op-ed this month for McClatchy newspapers.

Readers' Comments (490)

Obama’s standing with voters improved — an increase driven largely by the strengthening economy but also, West Wing officials say, by the president’s decision to taunt an unpopular Congress. He has hit a political sweet spot with many of his announcements: preventing 114 drug shortages, cutting billions in wasteful government spending and speeding up approval of $511 million in transportation projects.

the ONLY way to move forward is to push past the obstructionist repugs.

good job Obie.

we've been waiting for you to do this.

2 yrs of steady job growth each and every month.................................and obstructionist repugs can take NO credit for the same.

“We can’t wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job,” he said in Las Vegas in October. “Where they won’t act, I will.”- Team Politico/Obama

........Actually its the VAST majority of the American people that "can't wait" to vote this clueless rigid Ideologue out of office and send him back to the rich elite 1% section of Hyde Park where he and convicted felon and slum lord, Tony Rezko, purchased their mansion together.

Sure hope POLITICO we can revisit how Obama purchased his mansion in the rich elite 1% section of Hyde Park.

Millions of Americans are struggling with their mortgages and need help to purchase homes today. Everyone should be able to get the same mortgage deal that Rezko and Obama worked out together.

He should have taken a page from the Bush textbook...use the atmosphere of the times to create your policies. Bush used the fears of 9/11 to craft Homeland Security and international global policies...and "anyone who's not with us us against us."

When we elected "Change You Can Believe In", here's what we wanted on four big issues:

AFGHANISTAN: 64% of us opposed expanding the war in Afghanistan and wanted to disentangle from Bush-era ‘War on Terror’ and ‘preventive war’ policies. Today, still over 65% of Americans oppose the war. How much did Obama support what the American people wanted? We now over 90,000 troops there.

DEBT & FAIR TAXES: Washington Post-ABC poll Washington Post-ABC poll, Spring 2011: 72 percent supported raising taxes on the rich including 68 percent of Independents and 54 percent of Republicans. How much did Obama support what the American people wanted? He three times extended the Bush tax cuts with Boehner & McConnell and two of those instances were with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress.

TARP & The BAILOUT: Over 70% of us opposed the bailout. How much did Obama support what the American people wanted? He kept Bernanke and elevated Geithner (the midnight shoveller of money of tax money to Wall Street) to the Secretary of the US Treasury.

HEALTH CARE: 72% of us supported “a government administered insurance plan - something like Medicare for those under 65—that would compete for customers with private insurers.” How much did Obama support what the American people wanted? He gave us a private sector, for-profit subsidy program that costs us 20% more to guarantee their profits/‘overhead’ – their stocks jumped when it finally passed.

President Obama is doing what he should be doing: leading his Cabinet members in a systematic executive branch effort to ease the pain of Americans and to ease their way in these tough (though improving) times. Sure, he is highlighting the admirable efforts for political purposes (and he'd be a fool not to, especially given the Republican resistance in Congress to any legislation that might do the same for Americans on a bigger scale). Republicans are in campaign mode: fight against anything that might help Americans and our economy (while trying to make it look like the opposite).

Republican Sam Graves is an example. He's chairman of the House Small Business Committee. He's doing all he can to keep President Obama from modernizing the government website that would make government more in touch and responsive to citizen needs. Graves, no doubt, is a technological doofus who has no understanding of how fast our technological powers are developing. He may, like John McCain, not yet know how to e-mail on his computer. If he's not ignorant, then his opposition is pure Republican malice for our government. Starve and shrink government whenever possible, is the Republican motto; make it as dysfunctional as possible, so they can argue more convincingly that "government doesn't work," that "government is the problem." No, the problem with government is the Republican infiltration of it. Voters need to hire into government people who believe in the good government can do for its citizens. Voters need to send people to Washington that are committed to keeping our government ever more efficient and capable of being helpfully responsive to citizen needs.

President Obama does all he can to divert attention from his record of vast fiscal profligacy, and the debts that are being incurred by the national government during his watch. The federal debt will have risen by $6 trillion, to about $16 trillion, during his term. It is quite possible that it will rise to $20 trillion if voters give him a second term. Surely Mr. Obama would have remediation of this catastrophe in the making as his main issue by far if he were a serious leader. Unfortunately, he is not, and things go from bad to worse as he addresses issues that are minor to the fiscal integrity of the federal government, as he energetically works for the goal that is most important to him -- his reelection.

This article seems to be dissing the whole "using existing laws" approach (as, obviously, Politico is staffed with political journalists who salivate over passage or non-passage of a piece of legislation), but, seriously, "going alone" is all about acting without Congress, so it is all about bending the laws in place to achieve the agenda desired by the current executive branch.

So, seriously, may I ask: what do you find wrong about "using existing laws"? What's wrong with telling the business people how they can be benefited from the current laws in place to bring jobs back to US?

Or it is nothing more than over-zealous PolSci majors trying to find anything to bite?

And the thing is, the idiots don't realize that when they slobber like that, they aren't talking to the vast majority in the country. And when that majority stumbles upon their slobber, horror and disgust is the reaction -- not agreement.

Obama’s standing with voters improved — an increase driven largely by the strengthening economy but also, West Wing officials say, by the president’s decision to taunt an unpopular Congress. He has hit a political sweet spot with many of his announcements: preventing 114 drug shortages, cutting billions in wasteful government spending and speeding up approval of $511 million in transportation projects.

the ONLY way to move forward is to push past the obstructionist repugs.

good job Obie.

we've been waiting for you to do this.

2 yrs of steady job growth each and every month.................................and obstructionist repugs can take NO credit for the same.

good job Obie.

keep hammerin.

let 'em howl.

we love their anguish.

------------------------------------

So in other words, the "cowboy style". Isn't that also another reason why GW Bush was excoriated for years? Were you part of the group of Democrats who enjoyed bashing GW Bush because he did things alone? Were Liberals telling us that the next president was soooooo smart that he would consult with everyone before doing things the "cowboy way"?

Yet, in an act of pure hypocrisy, you came to Politico to post your comment.

Typical republican article. **** n moan about how much the presidenet is getting done, as they block everything they themselves were elected to do.

The article should be about how the Republican Congress of 2011 is the LEAST productive. When the Democratic one before it was the most productive in decades.

NOT trying to cath him in some piddly not enough for the critics... when the critics are the same pathetic Republicans who crashed our economy under Bush/Chaney and are sabotaging Americas recovery every day, in hopes of getting power is Americans just SUFFER ENOUGH!

The typical politician...The democrats had two years to pass any thing they wanted, and they did Obamacare etc. with out the support of any Republicans. The end of 2010 and the elections , sent a message Mr Obama didn't want to hear.

As usual Mr Obama missed the memo that not all Americans side with him on his hope and change, spread our wealth around agenda. Mr Obama would force feed a diabetic a candy cane if he thought it would further his agenda. Mr Obama is not pleased he's been held accountable by the 2010 elections. The election was a mandate against the democrats and their partisan politic's. There was nothing bipartisan about the passing of Obamacare. Mr Reid refuses any Republican jobs bill sent to the Senate. Did Mr Obama believe he would have no resistance from the American people that disagree with him at every turn.

When Mr Clinton was president there was a few items I agreed with him on, with Mr Obama I have yet to find an item I agree with Mr Obama on.

A Quote from Mr Obama "My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it."

Tell me if we are the greatest nation in the history of the world why change it?